Jimmy LaFave <3

Right now as I type this I am sitting on Doug and Telisha’s porch in beautiful Autumnal Nashville. The sun’s out. It’s warm but nothing too crazy. Leaves of varying colours are quietly falling from characterful old trees close to the house – dancing in the light breeze before gently reaching their final resting place, where they will eventually re-join the earth and start anew.

It was watching this same enchanting scene earlier this morning that Jimmy LaFave came very clearly into my mind. I knew the time was right for me to finally put my thoughts and emotions into words and share.

A few will think this is something I should have written a while ago – but there are a few reasons why I waited.

I truly believe that if something is important and worth doing it deserves 100% of your attention. It does not want to be worked on in between 12 other things. It needs to have you completely in the present and is worth more than being that thing that you rush through in the 5 or 10mins you have spare during your lunch break.

I’m extremely grateful that the Universe has really looked after me and kept me busy with lots of work, but the down side to being busy is having no time to just…….be.

But my main reason for not writing sooner is compared to most people I knew Jimmy for a very short amount of time. I wanted to physically and energetically create as much space as possible for everyone else to feel sadness and grieve. They deserved that – far more than I. So my way of showing love was to patiently wait until the right time….and Jimmy let me know this morning that this is it.

Many of you don’t know that I was asked to play drums on what will be one of his last ever recordings. He heard me performing with one of my favourite people Rebecca Loebe at the Saxon Pub and liked my playing style. I was incredibly honoured to say the very least, especially as I’d only ever met Jimmy very briefly a couple of times in passing.

The band was made of up of not only the best players but the best people you could hope to be around. Drew Pressman on bass, Jesse LaFave on Guitar and Stefano Intelisano on keys.

We spent a few days recording at Cedar Creek Studios with the awesome John Silva engineering. I will remember those days for the rest of my life. We had so much fun and the tracks sound incredible.

Jimmy was kind, hilarious, inappropriate, brave and inspiring. I tried to express to him a few times how much I appreciated him asking me to play but I don’t think he’ll ever know how much it meant to me.

Every single day we were recording I’d be filled with so much gratitude. I was surrounded by beautiful, talented souls and got to be part of something that will be enjoyed by so many people for many, many years. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Thank you Jimmy. Thank you so much for reminding me that life is precious, music is the best thing in the world and that you should really make the most of each and every single day. I wish we could have known each other longer but I am so very grateful for the time we did have together.